when i became chairman, i love bob telling the story, sitting next to him, joe biden and other committees for 20 years, never got close to being the chairman. you either have to outlive or hope your colleagues get defeated. and all of a sudden there were some 90 hearings on the residential mortgage crisis. we had a very slim majority. forty-nine republicans in january 2007. the margin of moving forward. almost no interest in the residential mortgage crisis. the witness said there might be too many foreclosures and he was ridiculed the next day in the media for being engaging on the magnitude of the problem. knowing that this was a hyperbole and there were many other foreclosures. and then we come to the weekend of st. patrick's day and you have the failure of bear stearns. most argue it was a one-off problem. not of any great seriousness. it was six months later to the day when you have the aig class, lehman brothers, and of course the most critical meeting of all. that occurred about 7:00 p.m. in the conference room of the speaker of the house, nancy closely. about 15 of us in the room a